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Another New Book Available: States of the Union, The History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023

Mount Greylock Books LLC has published States of the Union: The History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023.   St...

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Presidents Then and Now

 My new book project, States of the Union, 1789-2022: A Concise Political History of the US based on presidential addresses, has now reached Richard Nixon.  Joe Biden, I think it is fair to say, has had remarkably little impact on American politics and American opinion in his first fourteen months in August.  I believe I have stumbled upon a big reason why.

Radio became a mass medium early in the 1920s, and it became a key to Franklin Roosevelt's presidency.  Several times a year, his fireside chats focused the nation on its greatest problems and upon himself.  They had particular effect because Roosevelt excelled at putting the news of the week in a long-term perspective--until 1940, his attack on the depression and attempts to remake American society, and after that year, the course of the Second World War.  Television began to supplant radio in the late 1940s and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower made a number of important broadcast addresses both on economic questions and on foreign policy.  Kennedy followed the same pattern, including dramatic addresses on the Cuban missile crisis, civil rights, and the conclusion of the Test Ban Treaty.  Johnson spoke much less frequently to the American people, and the first broadcast he ever made devoted entirely to Vietnam was the March 31, 1968 one in which he dropped out of the presidential race.

It has become harder and harder to remember much about Nixon beyond the scandals that brought him down, but I have discovered that he was, in his own way, the Franklin Roosevelt of the television era.  During the first four pre-Watergate years of his presidency he made a dozen major broadcast addresses in addition to three state of the union addresses.  The majority of them traced the course of the Vietnam War, including his carefully staged troop withdrawals, his peace offers to the North  Vietnamese, his escalations of the war in 1970 and 1972, and finally the 1973 peace agreement.  But others dealt with domestic issues, including inflation and economic growth and school busing.  However one evaluates his policies and the degree of their success, he kept the American people very well-informed about what he thought and where he was going.  After 1973 the broadcasts focused increasingly on Watergate, although he also made a very detailed address on the energy crisis later in that year. I have not yet gone through the presidential addresses of the last half century, but I have the distinct feeling that the only subsequent president who even tried to match Nixon's record as a communicator was Ronald Reagan.

And this is the area in which Joe Biden has fallen so lamentably short.  He came to office in the midst of one crisis, the pandemic, and now faces two others, the inflationary surge and the war in Ukraine.  He has never gone before the American people in prime time to discuss either one.  He gave what amounted to a state of the union address a couple of months after taking office, and he gave an official one last month.  Beyond that he has relied on sound bites. Yes, the era of three television networks ended long ago, but they surely would still provide the time for a major presidential address, as would the cable news networks.  After a lifetime of behind-the-scenes legislating, however, Biden apparently has no ambition to define his presidency through extended, face-to-face talks to his constituents.

Donald Trump, of course, did maintain a continuous relationship to the voters via Twitter.  One could argue that he used the new medium the way FDR used radio and his successors learned to use television.  Twitter, of course, does not lend itself to sustained, detailed discussion of issues--something of which Trump was not capable anyway--and Trump's use of it was not good for America. Yet it did allow him to build up a devoted personal following that no president since Reagan, surely, has managed to match.  All our elites are now spoiled, confident, apparently, that the public will put up with whatever they do.  The political elite doesn't seem to see much need to explain itself.   The restoration of continual, detailed communication between the president of the people, it seems to me, is essential to the restoration of effective democracy.

4 comments:

Bozon said...

Professor

Having finished Weingerg's two Volume Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, and into The World At Arms, Hitler was far and away the most brilliant successful and popular Democratic figure, and from 1933 until 1940, the same duration almost of FDR. FDR failed to have much effect on the depression. Hitler turned Germany into a powerhouse during it!

All the best

Energyflow said...

Nixon likely learned as VP the value of public persuasion from his Checkers speech. He served in his middle age prime as president from 56-61 years old.Nowadays that seems youthful. The back office people puppeteer the senile leader. So Biden is hardly to blame. If Johnson and W were less communicative and therefore less democratic we might also take Bay of Tonkin and WMD false flag war excuses as part of their M.O.s. Johnson was a good legislator of course, getting civil rights reforms through to justify his succession and allay suspicions of antikennedy feelings while aiding the military in adventurism. Nixon's and Kissinger's diplomatic genius towards China and Russia plus the bad war outcome likely encouraged the Watergate revelations from Deep State insiders. Reagan was a radio host so such a format would appeal to him. "Tear down this wall" and other such drama. Being Irish, like Kennedy, perhaps a touch poetry and charisma involved here, unlike some drier presidents. Trump was a TV personality and real estate lecturer so he was no stranger to media although no intellectual. He seems to master the sound bite mentality of the day. This is important. Talking and thinking like the people is necessary. As above commenter mentioned wrt to radio talents of previous 30s demagogues. Did Lenin, Stalin or Mao need such tactics? Propaganda motivates like advertising, in democracy or otherwise. Lately Zelensky makes speeches tailored to most parliaments. Putin and his military and FM Lavrov hold significant speeches or information sessions regarding the current situation. Even the Pope publishes encyclicas. One sends subordinates on to talk shows for interviews to influence opinion in the government's favor and trade tweets as well.

SDW said...

Another source of exposure to presidents during the 1920s - 1940s was the newsreel. Most people attended the movies on a weekly basis. I can't remember how much of what we saw was publicity stuff and how much was political. I wouldn't have remembered newsreels except for the fact that in our family "Shh! The eyes and ears of the world" was a warning that a dangerous gossip was present

Bozon said...

Professor

Apparently, BBC, Putin is pursuing a policy of getting rid of his own Hillary Clintonesque Basket of Deplorables, Muslims, negroes, East Asians, etc, the old fashion way, by earning it by using them as cannon fodder for eager and highly racist and self oriented ethnic Ukrainians to dispatch for him!

All the best